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Are you curious, creative, and analytical? Do you want to work on a more sustainable society in which we understand and improve our relationships with nature through biodesign? Are you a storyteller, economist, engineer or designer and do you want to work in an interdisciplinary team on future proof concepts?

Join the minor SUSTAINABLE FUTURES: NATURE + DESIGN + CREATIVITY and get ready for a semester of transdisciplinary unpacking, making, experimenting, and sensing through biodesign.

In the Sustainable Futures: Nature + Design + Creativity program you develop yourself as a transdisciplinary practitioner. You will gain the knowledge, skills and mindset to become:

An eco-compatible design advocate who navigates the direct (local) impact and broader implications of design and living systems on nature. You gather, understand, and transform ideas and thinking across disciplines and discern the context-specific implications for materials, systems, and cultures.

A critical maker who combines material assessment methodologies with hands-on explorations to understand and design bio-materials and their implications and possible applications. You initiate and execute question-driven, explorative, and open-ended processes and instrumentalise diverse materials, technologies, and methods to come to design proposals.

A cultivating storyteller who uses the power of aesthetics and storytelling to creatively transmit regenerative ideas. You embrace complexity, make connections, and put things together creatively.
You understand and integrate insights into compelling arguments.

Re-thinking materials in a practice-based manner

Biodesign, circularity, and aesthetics: THIS is where the minor Sustainable Futures: Nature+ Design + Creativity is all about.
The program focuses on biodesign: a growing field that combines biology, design, and tech to create products and systems inspired by nature. Together with students from other backgrounds, you will create innovative and environmentally responsible solutions that take cues from cultural studies, new technologies, local and indigenous wisdom, and regenerative design.

The minor is open to students from diverse backgrounds to join this minor and investigate and improve our relationship with natural systems.

Bust made of mycelium, 2021.

Laser-cut kombucha, 2020.

In the minor Sustainable Futures: Nature + Design + Creativity hands-on knowledge is combined with a critical and curious attitude. Starting day one, you make, explore, and unpack drivers in biodesign and gain a deeper understanding of eco-compatible design practices.

At our own biolab, the Biomaterials Studio, you will learn to work with living materials and biofabrication, such as bacteria dye, fungi, algae, and biobased plastics. You are introduced to tools and frameworks to critically assess the ideological and historical layers in materials, systems, and culture in view. You will explore aesthetics and storytelling as a powerful tool to foster an understanding of -and care for- living systems on this planet.

In the second part of the minor, you apply these learnings in transdisciplinary team projects. In a thematic problem space with several internal and external partners (think of research groups, design studios, and governmental institutions) you apply your learnings by designing future-proof materials, systems, and cultures.

Students are graded on their progress in three learning objectives with a formative midterm assessment in week 10, and a summative final assessment in week 20. Students prepare a portfolio document to demonstrate their process and products, and reflect on their learning outcomes in a verbal assessment.

Throughout the minor, you work on assignments that allow you to fill your portfolio to demonstrate your progress on the learning outcomes and receive feedback and feed forward from both peers and tutors. Each assignment allows you to cover all three objectives to varying extent and we will dedicate time to understanding the relationships between all three of them.

We foster a safe, inclusive, supportive, and positive learning climate where students oversee their own personal learning trajectory and growth.